


Little Lion

by Nitzer



Category: Original Work
Genre: Atmospheric, F/M, Older Man/Younger Woman, a cautionary tale more than anything, dark themes, references to Lolita, technically underage but nothing happens really, very very vague sexual implications
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-20 22:03:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16146461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nitzer/pseuds/Nitzer
Summary: All of the bows in the world could not make this pretty.





	Little Lion

**Author's Note:**

> this has been sitting in my drafts for like a million years and it's actually like good and doesn't deserve that  
> i like in no way want to romanticize age gaps (ESPECIALLY age gaps with an underaged party) so like this is icky and meant to feel bad

They were sticky, dim, summer nights. All of the bows in the world could not make this pretty. You are playing Lolita with an old teacher of yours. Your skirts are too short and your smiles too coy. He is thirty-two and you are sixteen. It is perfectly half. It is perfectly forbidden. He loves it. He is so starved for you every time. His hands are so shaky—nervous and needy—as they slide up your knee.

                You like pouting for attention. You _love_ attention. He’s your most reliable source. He always seems to be holding back too. You like that even more. It makes you feel in power. A tiny, angelic, 16-year-old girl in frilly clothes has power. You make him want you. You override his sense of right and wrong. You get right past his sense of morals. You peer at him from under dark lashes and his hand slides further up your leg like he has been commanded.

                He brings you gifts—innocuous things really—stuffed animals, ribbons, little things. The most suspicious gift he gives you is a pair of stockings. They are white and covered in tiny hearts. You don’t wear them often but he goes crazy when you do. It’s like he has marked you but it’s a weak mark at best. You like pretty, pink collars and dark hickies but he has chosen stockings. You suppose it’s his choice. He denies it is a mark at all.

                The southern, summer air is heavy with wet heat and cicada chirps. Eight PM is full of lingering sunshine, everything moves slowly except you two. He is leading you through a forest and your skirts are flying everywhere, your pale legs a blur beneath them. He looks happy for once, not desperate. You feel like this is a genuine adventure. You’ve seen young fawns, born much too late into the season. He compares them to you. You do not see yourself as a fawn, you are a lion cub, slightly too old to be tamed. You will one day be dangerous but you are seen as cute for now.

                You make yourself a flower crown against a tree. He calls you a beautiful forest princess. You know you are a queen. He tells you about when he was a kid—a college student, really—but the way he speaks makes himself sound like a _child_. He explains his fantasy of staying in the woods, of not finishing his math work, of being such a genius he could stay out in nature and work on equations. Instead he ended up as a math tutor, sitting in the woods with a 16-year-old he lusts after. It was pitiful, almost.

                He is not unattractive but his desperation is. You wonder why he chose you when his sleeves are rolled up and his smile is easy. You are sure he has other options. He does not have to chase after you just because you seem interested. But here he is, reliving his boyhood with you simply because he wants to. You supposed you have other options too. But you are just playing around. You are risking nothing but your time.

                The moon glimmers in a puddle left over from a summer storm and you just barely catch it out of the corner of your eye. You are slumped against a tree, too tired for the early evening. He had lost his boyish nature in the fading sunlight. He was back to desperate and hungry. “I have something for you.” He says but you had figured that this little adventure had been his gift for the day. It is a light pink ribbon, perhaps an inch think. It’s yours, left over from a birthday or something, one you wear in your hair occasionally. He was not gifting it to you. He was simply reintroducing it. You had not even known it was missing.

                He ties it around your neck, tight enough to be constricting but not tight enough for the bow to slip loose. His eyes—dull, glowing amber—are fixed on your neck. It _is_ a collar this time—this mark. It is not dyed leather and metal buckles like you had imagined but you feel _captured_. You are a doe-eyed fawn skittering for control.

                All of the bows in the world could not make this pretty. The cicadas become louder in the dark silence. He is obsessed. This is no longer a risk to him, it is a necessity. He tied your own bow around your neck. You are slumped against a tree. He is looming over you, looking proud of himself.

                You are prey. You are caught. It was never a game to play in the fading summer light. It was a trap you happily danced into. You played Lolita and you lost. Because there is no winning, there is no _game_ to begin with. There’s just barely shrouded danger, dark summer nights and the rough bark of a tree digging into your stocking-covered legs, your pulse point pressing against the tight restraint of your own ribbon.


End file.
